Training Log Archive: jennycas

For those who don't know the route, this is a trail run with over 900 people crossing the Mornington Peninsula from Dromana to Cape Schanck (there is also a 56km lighthouse to lighthouse version which attracts over 200 intrepid runners): http://www.twobaystrailrun.com/iTheTrail.html

This is actually the 4th time I've run it (2011, 2:38; 2012, 2:40; 2014, 3:00) and while I know that I'm older and slower than ever before, my goal was not to be any more than 1 min/km slower than when I first did the run 6 years ago. Starting out, I knew that I was going to be very slow going up the Arthur's Seat climb, and about a million people went past me (they'd probably been caught in the bottleneck at the start) but it was a bit of a worry to be among people who were walking before we'd even left the bitumen. This guaranteed my being among walkers as soon as we got to the singletrack ascent, but there was nothing I could do about it except join the queue, thinking about all the energy I was saving for later on :) Even when the single trail flattened out around the back of the hill, passing people wasn't that easy, and since I hadn't taped my ankles I was watching my feet pretty carefully.

Finally got some wriggle room on the big downhill to the dam, which we then went left around - I'm not sure why, when the course has always crossed on the dam wall other years, but then that maybe explains why the course has previously been a bit shorter than the advertised 28km. The first hour ticked over already at the 8km mark; I'll need to get a move on! After all, when you get into Greens Bush, it's still not even halfway, and there's a couple of long slow uphills on the road before then...on the second of these, the leading 56km runners absolutely flew past in the opposite direction. The leading guy, who ended up doing 4:09, probably weighed less than me (admittedly not hard).

But once I got into the bush, things flowed really nicely for me. It was a cool cloudy day - I didn't even take a hat - and sure, there are lots of little ups & downs, yet the sneaky uphills following ferny boardwalk creek crossings didn't seem as hard as I'd remembered, and the trail was soft underfoot, even sandy at times. And I started passing people. Some of them passed me back, and later I passed them again, and mostly they stayed passed thereafter!

2 hrs came at just over 17km, and now I couldn't remember quite how far it was to Boneo Rd, but I thought I'd be able to do nearly 10km in the next hour as the course got easier. I could see that some of the people around me were finding it hard work though, and walking quite small inclines. Boneo Rd was at 22km (officially, anyway) and just after that I started to get calf cramps and had the fearful thought that it would be a long way to the finish if I had to walk, but the magnesium tablets kicked in and all was well. I deliberately walked the stairs at 25km though, and heard one woman say to another at the top "we made it up those bastards" (did think at times that it would have been nice to have a girl friend to chat with along the way, as others were doing - Zara, next year?).

Fast feet came up behind me at 27 km and I let her go, not being in this for a chase, but about 400m later I went past the same lady without even trying...definitely this was a race which got better as it went on and although I'd been thinking at the start that if I got a time over 3:10 that would be an indication that I needed to quit these runs, now I'm thinking that since my official time was less than 5 min slower than 2014 (when I got held up in the shoe cleaning queue for 3 min), maybe I just need to do proper hill training and get into a better position going up the road from Dromana, before the single track begins. Then again, I have delirious thoughts about doing the Pichi Richi marathon again one day too...

C • Dam wall 9